Micheál Donoghue will not be cajoled back into the Galway hurling hotseat, despite rumblings of player unease over the sudden loss of their All-Ireland-winning manager earlier this week.

However, Independent.ie has learned that an increasingly fractured relationship between Donoghue and the Galway County Board hierarchy was a major contributory factor in his decision to step down after four seasons.

News of his departure came as a thunderbolt late on Tuesday night.

It’s understood that the Galway hurlers, who remain steadfastly loyal, will not be making any comment on the matter for now, but the Tuam Herald has reported that they were due to meet to decide on their next move.

This followed an earlier claim via Twitter, hinting at player agitation against the board with the primary intention of seeing the outgoing manager's reinstatement.

However, a well-placed source has cautioned that Donoghue and his backroom team "are not going back. They have made their minds up; they thought about it."

The decision not to take up the fifth year of their term was only finalised last Monday night and communicated to the players the following evening.

Various sources have cited a poor relationship between management and the board, with one insider describing it as "terrible".

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It's understood that management had fund-raised "hundreds of thousands" of euro for the team over the past four years – but struggled to attain the necessary financial backing from the board itself.

The challenges this placed on the Galway set-up, in their attempts to run a “high performance environment” at inter-county level, were put into context when they saw the huge financial muscle that sponsors Teneo could bring to Liam Sheedy’s Tipperary this season.